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Right or wrong time to move hive to other location?

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I'm not sure if there's a perfect time to move bees to a totally different location miles away, but it is what I am considering due to the fact that I have some feral Florida bees in my backyard which are a bit on the hot side. It is a top bar hive and they are a STRONG bunch. (yes, I know I could re-queen, but I don't really want to. I want to keep their survival traits going, but away from my kids and neighbors out on a friend's farm)

However, my concern is this:

It is springtime and I can tell the hive is going through some changes/preparations.

My main evidence of this is that there are many drones taking orientation flights.

By moving the hive, would this fully interrupt any preparations they are making to reproduce/swarm, etc?

Some of you would probably welcome such an interruption, but I would like to know all the possible repercussions before I make such a drastic move.

And, on top of everything else, I was considering doing a split with the hive based on what I find inside over the next week. Of course, I would have to find stores of honey and plenty of swarm cells and/or eggs/brood.

In Florida, these hives expand quickly, especially during this time of year, and this hive is rather on the small side, so a split is probably in order, regardless if I move it or not.

Re: Right or wrong time to move hive to other location?

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't during a potential fragile time for them.

I'm almost apprehensive to do it, though, because I know they'll probably have to deal with a whole new set of pests out in the "wild", so to speak.

My backyard is pretty-much a safe-haven for them.

This is my first strong, queen-right hive, and I don't particularly want to lose it.

By the way, I have a barrel hive I made for my farmer friend of where I will be moving these bees. If I do a split, the top bars on the barrel hive are much larger than the hive they are presently in. I plan on using that strong (20 lb rated) 3m/Scotch double sided sticky tape on the bottom of the long top bars to stick the smaller top bars I'll be splitting to that hive.

Here are photos of the hive the bees are now in vs the barrel hive:

Oh yes, the queen DID come out of that trap and moved into my wacky top bar hive back in September:

Here's the wacky barrel hive that is yet to have bees in it. It has two-foot long top bars: